• MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    If the EU gives more incentives to their companies, US tech firms will come back begging like little bitches to claim EU domicile.

    • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 day ago

      What people don’t seem to realize is that the US effectively subsidizes the digital sector by means of minimal taxation. The EU should tax the fuck out of US tech companies, and incentive European alternatives and especially FOSS.

      Oh,and Ireland (country that I love, btw), get rid of the parasitic sector, wich may bring in money, but also fucks up your country. See housing, for example.

      • ThisIsDys@europe.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        5 hours ago

        I don’t know how we’ve been getting record corporate taxes year after year (to say nothing of our income taxes on the higher salaries tech companies pay thousands of Irish employees), and yet:

        • Infrastructure remains shit and underdeveloped
        • Inequality of development, amenities, and pay between Dublin and everywhere else gets worse every year.
        • We’ve failed to build a solid bedrock of homegrown companies to replace the fragile reliance on MNC employment and corporate taxes.
        • Pension age bomb is still ticking

        I maintain that low corporate taxes are, unfortunately, crucial for underdeveloped nations to have any hope of investment coming to their shores. It sucks, but it massively contributed to Ireland crawling out of desperate poverty. And we never did anything sustainable with that good fortune, to say nothing of being too scared of them leaving to not reset the tax rate to something fairer now that we have other benefits for MNCs beyond low taxes (eg: we’re one of the most well educated countries in the world now). If US giants leave Ireland, there’s gonna be a shitton of unemployed people and we don’t have anywhere internally for them to take their expertise.

        Edit: None of this, BTW, says the EU shouldn’t smack them hard as a counter. Out government has fucked us with decades of “ah sure it’ll be grand”. No reason the whole EU should be held back just for us.

        The EU will be held back in this because those same corps have immense political weight more than anything tbh.